


birds of a feather

by neogotmyheart



Series: soulmate miniseries [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff, Soulmates, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 15:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20428517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neogotmyheart/pseuds/neogotmyheart
Summary: your soulmate tell wasn’t as obvious as you would have liked. with no physical sign to let you know when you met your soulmate, you began to wonder if you even had a soulmate. that is until a goose chased you throughout a park.





	birds of a feather

The fall breeze rustled the tall grass that surrounded you, as you sat on the soft blanket in the middle of the park by your apartment. You had brought out your picnic basket to enjoy the cool morning. There were a lot of weekends that you liked to spend the morning by yourself. With your hectic schedule and an apartment full of roommates that were very social, sometimes it was nice to get away for a bit and spend some much needed time alone. 

With a simple white sundress on and your sandals discarded to the side, you had a basket full of your favorite food, books, and a small notebook to draw in if you wanted. You had already finished the majority of your food and were filling the current time reading through your new favorite series, taking in each and every word as it painted a picture of the scene happening in the chapter. As a biology major, you didn’t have a lot of time for an actual hobby so reading had to do. 

You weren’t always comfortable with yourself. The thought of being alone honestly terrified you because you knew it would force you to think about yourself and the fact that you were wrought with the fear of solitude. The loneliness started when you realized you didn’t have a soulmate mark. Thinking that Fate didn’t deem you worthy enough for an eternal partner did a real number on your self-esteem. You developed a habit of picking on yourself and focusing on your negative traits. When that became unbearable, you picked up reading as a distraction just to find out that it was actually a valuable part in your journey of accepting yourself. You saw yourself in characters you liked as well as disliked. You learned that bad traits do not equate to a bad person and now that you knew what you didn’t like, you could fix it. You were not limited to the personality you had at your worst moments and you were capable of growing and adapting. Somewhere along the line, you had actually grown to enjoy your own company. You would sit and seek out growth or meditate on the things in life you wanted to change. You spent many days in your room avoiding people just for the sake of reconnecting with yourself. Even when you were alone, it never truly felt like it because of the fact that you had befriended your own soul.

When you started college, you figured out the best way to keep up your routine time away was have a date with yourself once a week. This fall, those days looked like picnics in the park on the weekend, early enough in the morning that it was still pleasant to be outside. You packed your essentials for good quality time by yourself and made the small walk each week.

You sat up momentarily, placing the book next to you on the soft blanket so you could look at the pond in front of you as you drink from your glass jar. The light rippling on the surface drew your attention for a few moments before your thoughts wandered as you stared blankly at the body of water. It was nice to be alone sometimes. You didn’t have the opportunity to be alone all the time but you really didn’t think you would mind it all that much if that’s what it came to. Being one of the only people in the world without a soulmate tell or mark, you somewhat got used to the idea of not having the person everyone dreamed of having one day.

There were plenty of reasons why you wouldn’t or couldn’t have a soulmate in this lifetime, but it wasn’t really worth dwelling on. You had grown to be in love with yourself and find peace with your own company. There was a pure, unadulterated beauty that came with being content with your own soul. Quiet was a security blanket of sorts and it had become one that you often turned to in times of struggle.

However, you couldn’t help but wonder about what it would be like to have a soulmate. Today was one of those days as you pictured someone boisterous and full of childlike wonder. You knew that having someone just like you would never work because neither of you would talk. Instead, you imagined your exact opposite running around with the ducks as you sat in your place and read. They would make plenty of sweets to pack in your basket and you would have to warn them not to eat too much as to avoid a stomach ache. The entire thing was all a concocted fantasy, but for just a moment, it all seemed right.

You dug through your picnic basket looking for the chocolate strawberries that you made when you heard a squawking to your left. Turning slowly, you made eye contact with a large white goose. You turned back to your basket to look for something to feed it when it made another loud noise. 

With your hands up, you faced the goose once more, face scrunching as you tried to figure out just what the problem was. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I just thought you wanted some food.”

When it leaned down to bite at your ankles you leaped to your feet, backing away from the goose. Each step you took just made the rather large winged bird move closer and closer to you until eventually you just turned and ran, it’s beak nipping at your heels every now and then. Running from a goose wasn’t exactly what you were wanting to do this morning, but here you were.

Each barefoot landed in front of the other on the soft grass as you continued running along the bank of the pond. Your heart was pounding out of adrenaline and fear and partially because of the fact that you hadn’t truly exercised since arriving at college. You had no doubt that people were watching you, but if they were in your position, they would be doing the same thing.

The white eyelet of your dress restricted you just a little bit but you would not allow yourself to be beaten by a goose. You were literally in college and there was no reason you shouldn’t be able to outrun this bird that seemed like it should be too heavy for its stick-like legs.

Just as you turned your head to check and see if it was still following you, you crashed into a large figure in front of you. You stumbled backward, almost losing your footing before the stranger grabbed your arm and pulled you back to him. You couldn’t even look at him because you were too busy staring at the animal that had forced you to collide with the much taller, much broader boy who now held you in his arms.

“I’m so sorry” spilled out of your mouth at the same time the boy said something about a goose chasing him.

You grabbed his arm, finally looking up at him. “Wait, a goose is chasing you, too?”

He looked over your shoulder to notice the goose behind you before turning back to look at the menace of his own. “I’ve been to this park plenty of times and had never been chased before. I wonder what’s going on.”

“I don’t really know, but I need to figure out a way to get my shoes and all my stuff.” You wiggled your toes in the grass as the stranger looked down at your feet.

A light smile graced his lips. “Come on, I’ll walk with you. Maybe if we’re together they won’t attack.”

Unfortunately, when you started walking in the direction of your blanket, the two geese just followed behind you. Their slow waddle was much better than the full chase that was happening moments ago but it was still unsettling as you remembered the full sprint you had to be in just seconds ago.

When you reached your set up under the tree and in front of the small pond, the boy let out a low whistle and rubbed the back of his neck. “Morning date?”

You slid on your shoes, laughing lightly. “With myself.”

You didn’t really want to tell him that this was a routine of yours and have him possibly look down on you for spending so much time alone. It wasn’t that you cared what people thought of you when you sat all alone on the blanket, but maybe you did care just a little bit about what he thought now that you had someone who knew what you were doing. He watched as you did your best to pack up all your stuff, standing guard to protect you from the birds. He peeked over his shoulder at them to make sure they weren’t making any advances before turning back to you, running a hand through his hair. 

“The geese are just hanging out, so maybe their done attacking. I’ll let you get back to your date.” He smiled and waved at you before turning around and beginning to walk off. The second he stepped away from you, the geese charged him, pushing him back towards you before he was practically standing on top of you. He dropped his arms at his side in defeat and faced you again. “Nevermind then.”

“You can sit if you want since you’re stuck here.” You took the recently folded blanket and laid it back out for the two of you. If you couldn’t leave, you might as well go back to what you were doing and enjoy the rest of your morning.

He sat on the blanket, one knee up with his elbow resting on it. “I’ve just never seen geese act like this. Why aren’t they attacking anyone else?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really know much about birds. I just know I’ve never been bothered before.” You played with the sleeve of your dress, poking your pinky through one of the holes of the eyelet. You weren’t really one for just making conversation so now that this boy was sitting with you, you didn’t really know what to say.

“I’m Yukhei,” he said, extending his hand for you to shake it. You looked up at him and realized it was the first time you had really gotten a good look at the boy. His brown hair fell over his face and was almost too long for him to see past. His shoulders were broad and the way his black shirt was tucked into a pair of jeans accentuated his small waist. His smile was bright and his eyes were warm. If you were going to be stuck on this blanket with any stranger, at least it was one that was fairly attractive. The company wasn’t unpleasant.

“___.” You accepted his hand, noticing how it completely swallowed yours. Your heart skipped slightly at the feeling and at the sight of his smile. How ridiculous to be charmed by someone that hadn’t even spoken more than five sentences to you. “Do you, um, do you want anything to eat?”

“Wait you have food in there?” He looked at you excitedly, shifting to sit on his knees in front of the basket.

“I mean it is a picnic,” you smiled at him while his eyes filled with wonder and curiosity. He was cute, really. His actions reminded you of the boy you had dreamed up just moments ago. Everything was just way too good to be true. The problem was that he probably had some sort of soulmate tell while you didn’t.

“I would feel bad taking your food just because we’re stranded on this blanket island.”

The geese responsible for your current confinement were now laying down in the long grass, eyes still never leaving the pair of you. “We may be here awhile. You can at least have a couple cookies if you let me have the strawberries.”

His eyes lit up and he dug through the basket. “Cookies are my favorite. It’s like Fate knew and did me some sort of favor.”

Your chest suddenly felt tight at the mention of her. Was this all a ploy to get the two of you together? You couldn’t deny the fact that you were incredibly comfortable around the boy almost instantly. The attraction was there which was surprising considering you had never really gotten the whole “butterflies in the stomach” feeling around anyone, much less someone you had known for a few minutes. You didn’t want to get your hopes up when the chances were slim, but you couldn’t help but notice the coincidences.

“Yukhei?”

He hummed in acknowledgment while he bit into the dessert.

You swallowed deeply trying to figure out how to word this without seeming too forward. Asking someone what their soulmate tell or mark was could be perceived as a very blunt form of flirting and it would make the rest of his forced visit very uncomfortable for you, at least.

“What’s your soulmate tell?” If he didn’t have a soulmate tell like you, then it could be in the form of the two aggressive animals sitting right in front of you. You held your breath and waited for an answer.

“I don’t have one, I don’t think,” he responded, looking to the side before putting the rest of the cookie in his mouth. It seemed to be a sore subject for him considering the way his entire mood turned somber and he lacked the cheery air that surrounded him before.

“I don’t either,” you told him, hoping he picked up at the implication.

“It kinda sucks, doesn’t it? Like, I just wander around every day not knowing whether or not I even have a soulmate.” He leaned back on his hands after dusting his hands free of crumbs.

He didn’t catch your suggestion at all and you refrained from rolling your eyes. His straight forward thinking was sweet, even if it was a little naive. You weren’t about to fault him for that. Instead, you did your best to spell it out for him.

“Do you think Fate actually did have anything to do with this?”

“What do you mean?” His brows furrowed in confusion.

“None of the geese are chasing anyone else and those two seem to be pretty intent on watching us.” 

The birds had not moved from their positions in the grass and their focus was still trained on where you were sitting. It was incredibly unsettling and you couldn’t think of anything that could warrant behavior like this from a bird, much less two. They shared a similar goal despite coming from two different directions. It was hard to believe that both of you had angered them enough for a freeze-out like this when you were minding your own business until you were literally run off your picnic blanket.

When you looked out at the park, you found that everyone else seemed to be going about their visit with no interruptions. Children played on the small playground and ran around. A few were feeding the ducks with their leftover breakfast. A couple rode their bikes around the pond as they laughed and talked about something you couldn’t decipher. A mom sat on the bench while her daughter picked wildflowers in the middle of the grass. The only two people who faced any difficulty were the two of you even though there were plenty of other easy targets on the sunny, fall morning. You raised your eyebrow at him, waiting for him to respond.

Yukhei looked behind him at the now peaceful white birds. “So, what? You think the geese are our tell? Is that even a thing?”

You heard a squawking as if the birds were confirming your hypothesis. You raised a hand as if to emphasize the point. “I don’t know if it was a thing before, but it could be a thing now. I’ve never been one to try and limit Fate and Her abilities.”

He looked at the geese one more time before looking back at you. “You’re my soulmate?”

You nodded slowly, doing your best to process what you were saying. “I think so.”

A smile so big took over his face as he climbed onto his knees and pulled you into a hug. You had no choice but to bury your face in his chest, but you didn’t mind it all that much. He was warm and the way that his arms wrapped around you made you feel like you were home. Never had you imagined that you had a soulmate out there waiting for you, but now that you had one right in front of you, all complacency with living alone was washed away and replaced by hope for your future.

As soon as he pulled away from you, he turned and looked at the birds and pointed at you. “This is my soulmate!”

As if on cue, the birds got up and waddled away, leaving the pair of you stunned. You thought that the guess was a longshot, but that whole scene just proved it to you. They were your soulmate tell. They were sent by Fate to push the two of you together until you figured out that you were made for each other.

You sat back down, still close to him as you laughed about the whole set up. “So geese actually are a soulmate tell. Miss Fate got creative.”

“My best friend told me She would have something special in store for me. I always just thought she said it to make me feel better.” He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly still in disbelief.

Yukhei dropped onto the blanket, head resting on one of his hands as he pulled out his phone, mumbling something about researching before going quiet and scrolling with a determined look on his face. You took the time to finish reading your chapter, content with just the company of your soulmate. The morning was supposed to be spent alone, but the presence of another person was surprisingly pleasant.

By the time he had found the answer, he had moved. His head was now in your lap as you held the book in one hand and played with his hair with the other. The arrangement had made you feel as if you had known him for years and not only an hour. Yukhei was easy to be around and you already felt closer to him despite the minimal communication thanks to his immense concentration. You couldn’t say you minded though since you were always a little bit quieter. Something about Yukhei told you he wasn’t always like this, he was just silenced by his determination.

“Goose of Enforcement,” he mumbled.

You hummed in response, turning the page slowly. He had been saying random things for the past hour, but it was mostly just him thinking out loud. You weren’t exactly listening to what he said anymore.

“That’s what it’s called,” he said a little bit louder, putting his phone down and looking at you.

You followed his actions, dog-earring the page and setting your book next to you. “That’s what what’s called?”

“Our… thing,” He gestured between the two of you before pointing at the geese. “They were sent by Fate to run us together since we were finally in a similar area. Less than fifty people have said they’ve experienced this which is why it took me so long to find any answers.”

“Well, I’m glad we were in a park instead of a hallway at school or something.” The picture of geese squawking at you while people filed around you just trying to get to class was funny but also extremely anxiety-inducing. You would have been way more confused than you already were.

Yukhei seemed to only see amusement in the scenario. “We may have figured it out faster.”

You pushed his shoulder playfully. “I think I did pretty good. It wasn’t like I knew as soon as I saw the goose, but it didn’t take me that long.”

“I honestly am pretty impressed by that. I was so confused. I thought I just pissed the bird off or something.” 

You continued to run your hand through his hair as he pouted playfully. It was hard not to smile at his actions when he was literally six feet tall and was crossing his arms like a child.

“This is just so insane to me still. I mean, a bird? Really? It’s horribly unconventional and not exactly practical.” Looking out at the pond, you couldn’t even imagine the appeal of using such flighty, and quite frankly, terrifying birds to lure two fated lovers together.

“I know.” He let out a puff of air before continuing. “I seriously spent my whole life wondering if there was even someone out there for me just to find out that I needed to go to the park during migration.”

You laughed lightly. “I just got sick of hearing the whole, ‘your souls are formed from the same star’ story in school when as far as I knew, I was alone. Just kinda stung.”

He hummed in agreement before his face lit up and he smiled, his toothy grin filling your chest with warmth. “Maybe our souls were formed from the same bird and that’s why we have geese instead of something else.”

“Other people are made of stardust and brightness and ours are made of feathers and chicken feet?” You raised your eyebrows while he furrowed his, rethinking his statement.

“Okay, maybe not. It sounded more romantic in my head because I thought we were different.”

You shook your head, smiling. “I think we at least have a story to tell.”

“You also have me,” he pointed out. “Think of how lucky you are. Only one person in the entire world was made for me and Fate decided it was you.”

You laughed, leaning back on your hands as he propped himself on his elbow, upper body hovering over your legs.

“I’m glad you know your worth, Yukhei.” His confidence was just another thing that had charmed you. It was refreshing to be around someone who thought so highly of themselves when you were in a major that was filled with people that put themselves down and were ridden by anxiety.

“Spend enough time around me and you’ll know yours, too. I’ll make sure of it.” He sounded so sincere and his tone didn’t have an ounce of humor. 

“I think I’m alright, but I never thought of myself as anything over the top.” You made good grades and you had a stable future, but besides that, you weren’t sure what else you had going for you.

“Tell me about yourself and then I’ll decide.”

You told him about how you picked your major of biology and how you weren’t sure if you wanted to do medicine or research yet. All you knew was that you wanted to help people. Mentions of various books filled the conversation considering it was the one thing you did in your free time. He was able to participate in some of the discussion but it ended up just being a conversation about how the movies were different from the novel. You also spoke of your family and your childhood, feeling like it was just another thing you could cover to make yourself sound more interesting than you probably were. Yukhei listened to every detail intently, nodding to show he was still listening and even stepping in every now and then with questions.

“I’m not going to like test you over this you know. You look like you’re studying me.” It was nice to have someone care so much about what you were saying, but it was definitely different.

He shrugged, fingers playing innocently with the eyelet on the hem of your dress. “You’re my soulmate. I want to know everything about you that I possibly can.”

You couldn’t ignore the way your heart fluttered at the statement. You never knew how nice it would be to have someone be so invested in you. Your friends did a good job of making you feel important, but there was only so much they could do considering they had their own lives as well as other friends to worry about. While you didn’t expect things to be this way, you had never felt like someone was focused on you and you only. It was nice to know that Yukhei cared about what you were saying and was even invested because he already saw you as someone deeply important to him. You wanted to return the sentiment.

“Well, I feel like I’ve shared about as much as I can think of at the moment. So what about you? Do I get to know who you are?”

Yukhei was easily ten times more talkative than you. While it took you about fifteen minutes to cover everything you felt like was important, Yukhei carried on for at least an hour. You didn’t mind much though. Listening to him talk was very entertaining. He had a way of making everything he said sound interesting and you were hanging on his every word. He mentioned being a film major with a theater minor. He wanted to be a screenwriter or a director but he also wouldn’t mind acting one day. He had the charisma of an actor so you could see it working out just fine for him. His family seemed to be pretty supportive of his aspirations and it made you happy to hear. Art majors of any form didn’t normally have the backing of family and sometimes even friends. His large support system must be why he could have the confidence in himself that you lacked.

At some point, he had moved to sit criss cross in front of you, taking your hand in his and playing with your fingers as he talked. You watched his movements while listening the best you could. Yukhei made you feel the most at peace you ever had. Something about talking to him made your worries seem so minuscule if only for a moment. 

As he walked you home that late morning, you finally understood that being alone was good sometimes, but that didn’t mean it had to be forever. Fate had allowed you to grow comfortable with yourself under the pretenses that you were all that you had before allowing you to share the gift of your life with someone else. While you would have preferred to know a soulmate was out there, you understand now how much you grew simply because you thought you didn’t. 

Yukhei swung your hands back and forth as you walked down the sidewalk and you wondered if it was the same for him. He seemed to be content with himself so maybe Fate was waiting on you. That would be a conversation for another day, though, knowing that you had forever ahead of you. The two of you could share this whole lifetime and pass on knowing you would just meet in the next. You could practically feel the heat of your shared star radiating between you as you approached your front steps. 

With a quick kiss to your forehead, Yukhei said his goodbyes as you watched him leave wondering how you had made it so long without him.

Walking into your apartment, you found peace in knowing that you would get to be in love with two people you would always have; Yukhei and yourself.

**Author's Note:**

> see you soon with jaehyun's part of the soulmate miniseries!!
> 
> tumblr: lovingyong


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